Aiming to build innovation culture among engineering graduates, the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU)-Hyderabad and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) have on Saturday entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which will facilitate establishment of innovation labs for pursuance of new technologies in tech product development.

The MoU, which will also promote culture of tech product development by facilitating ideation, experimentation and prototypes besides mentoring students towards innovation/incubation, was signed by Prof. A Venugopal Reddy, Vice-Chancellor, JNTU-Hyderabad and V Rajanna, Chairman CII Telangana & Vice President & Global Head-Technology Business Unit, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in the presence of Kadiam Srihari, Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister.

The pact would help facilitate sustainable faculty development program towards industry innovation and also facilitates in conduct of hackathon leagues/innovation challenges among engineering students. The agreement would also help in identify and pursue industry relevant problems for research and tech product development.

Speaking on the occasion Srihari said it was essential to build successful partnerships between academia and industry. Collaborations like these would ensure industrial relevance in academic research, he added.

Your Ad here

Highlighting the objectives of the MoU, Rajanna emphasized that agreement will facilitate regular interaction between the industry and academia. CII will also facilitate faculty development programmes on newer technologies of interest so that the faculty is well trained in advance, he said.

Prof. Venugopal Reddy said the varsity, in its endeavor to improve quality and relevance of engineering graduates, was launching a university-wide Research & Development and Innovation initiative called J-Hub. The MoU would help researchers and engineering graduates work on industry relevant products and applied research in problems of industry and societal relevance, he said.